Bad judgment is Dick Cheney’s trademark.. . .What is always overlooked with Dick Cheney is how he performs when he arrives in his various jobs. The answer is, in truth, not very well.. . .An examination of Cheney’s career reveals that it is marked by upward mobility and downward performance.. . .The issue of Dick Cheney’s judgment must be raised because he is the catalyst, architect, and chief proponent of Bush’s authoritarian policies.. . .It was Cheney, and his mentor, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who convinced Bush to go to war in Iraq.(from: Conservatives Without Conscience, by John Dean, ISBN 0-670-03774-5, p.159-161)

This is the background on Dick Cheney, as Josh Marshall writes in Vice Grip:

Dick Cheney is a man of principles, disastrous principles.

. . . mistakes–on energy policy, homeland security, corporate reform–abound. Indeed, on almost any issue, it’s usually a sure bet that if Cheney has lined up on one side, the opposite course will turn out to be the wiser. Yet somehow, in Washington’s collective mind, Cheney’s numerous stumbles and missteps have not displaced the reputation he enjoys as a sober, reliable, skilled inside player.

Cheney is conservative, of course, but beneath his conservatism is something more important: a mindset rooted in his peculiar corporate-Washington-insider class.

. . . few groups are so accustomed to self-dealing and self-aggrandizement as the cartel-capitalist class. And few are more used to equating their own self-interest with the interests of the country as a whole.